National Archives This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.

“The number of job openings hit a record high of 7.3 million in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday in a sign of the labor market’s strength.”

Job openings hit record high of 7.3 million in December
By Joseph Lawler
Washington Examiner
February 12, 2019

The number of job openings hit a record high of 7.3 million in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday in a sign of the labor market’s strength.

The private sector drove the new record, with private entities accounting for 6.7 million job vacancies — also a record high. The construction industry recorded 382,000 new posts, far more than ever before.

In the past three months, the economy has added an average of 241,000 net new jobs a month, more than twice as much as needed to keep up with population growth and keep unemployment trending down.

As a result, more of the population is working. For prime-age workers, meaning those between ages 25 and 54, the total employment rate rose to 79.9 percent in January, the highest such rate since the financial crisis hit.

Read the full article here.